RENNSPORT to Break Radio Silence in June

Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo in RENNSPORT at Spa-Francorchamps.jpg
The announcement of a brand new racing simulation created noticeable excitement in the summer of 2022 when RENNSPORT was first unveiled - the project has since gone on to host the very first sim racing esports competition in ESL history, with big teams like Team Redline or G2 Esports on the virtual grid. Meanwhile, the average sim racer is still waiting even for beta access, and the last official bit of news in this regard was published in late January.

Image Credit: RENNSPORT on Twitter

Set to be an all-new sim built from scratch, RENNSPORT set out to revolutionize not just sim racing esports, but the modding community as well, planning to provide modders with bespoke tool kits for the sim to create content. Initially, the closed beta, for which sim racers could sign up as early as September 2022, would be underway by the end of last year.

No Beta Date Yet​

This date could not be met and was moved to early February - a self-imposed deadline RENNSPORT also could not fulfill. Instead, sim racers were informed in late January that the start of the closed beta had been postponed, this time without giving a new date to look forward to.


Meanwhile, ESL R1, as the esports competition is called, has seven of its eight rounds befor their Spring Major on June 3rd and 4th already under its belt, leading to some of the sim racing community questioning this divided approach.

Though not official news, RENNSPORT CEO Morris Hebecker shared an interesting announcement during his guest appearance on the Grid Finder Sim Sundays podcast: "We definitely will have a reasonable amount of race tracks and cars by the beginning of next year." Then, a more complete version of the sim should be available - "I wouldn't say it's a release, but kind of a release", says Hebecker.

At the time of writing this article, RENNSPORT's car roster consists of five cars, four of which are in the GT3 category. There are four tracks available, one of which is not a circuit but a point-to-point track.

RENNSPORT Cars​

  • Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II
  • BMW M4 GT3
  • Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo
  • Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)
  • Porsche Mission R

RENNSPORT Tracks​

  • Goodwood Hillclimb
  • Hockenheimring
  • Nürburgring
  • Spa-Francorchamps

The recent silence does not mean that the RENNSPORT team has not been hard at work behind the scenes in the meantime: Hebecker promises that at the RENNSPORT Summit in Munich - at which the ESL R1 Spring Major is going to be held - in June, "we definitely will have four or five new cars that we will show there, and also new race tracks."

Getting the Beta underway is the top priority right now though, as Hebecker explains: "There are so many people on the wait list, and the only thing we have on our Discord server is that they ask 'when can we have a go at the Beta?' We need our time. Wait until the summer, then we can show what it will look like."


What are your thoughts on what is on the road ahead for RENNSPORT? Let us know in the comments!
About author
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

Comments

At the current very saturated sim racing game market, maybe, creating a small modding team that generates a steady streams of new cars and tracks could have a better positive cash flow than a mid size studio creating "new" sim racing game.
Just me playing a devil's advocate.
 
I think of Star Trek :O_o:

" Computer, Ferrari 488 GT3 at Sebring "

You don't select between 6 engines. :laugh:
 
They really let the hype die around this title by focussing on the minority of a niche market who follow eSports for marketing the title...

It doesn't help that a lot of the competitors have posted videos of going back to the old favourite as respite from the Rennsport league events...

At this point it's just looking like another boring GT3 title anyway so I'm not bothered that I have to wait until they put something interesting in the title...
 
I honestly have no idea what the vision behind this game is, it's to me absolutely unclear and thats also why i am not excited or looking forward to it in the classic sense of the word.
How is a game supposed to be an e-sports title and focused on online racing when it apparently will rely heavily on community modding and ownership of said mods?
I might be old fashioned here, but from my perspective, if you want your game to become an e-sports competitor to the likes of iRacing, ACC or Gran Turismo 7 then you should keep a closed and heavily curated game content. Just like these three are doing.
For now the only thing it has going for itself are the visuals i guess. But as we know, for a simracing title thats the least important thing.

And as it was mentioned above, they clearly did not understand how to sustain or build up the 'hype' or marketing for this game, it feels super anticlimactic.
 
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I believe that today in an already quite saturated market of racing simulators, where everyone is focused on being a base for e-sports, there is a great opportunity to fill a void that exists today when we talk about single-player on PC, but which is already fulfilled even if in a bad way on the consoles with Gran Turismo 7. Seriously, why nobody thinks about making a "Gran Turismo 4" on the PC but with more realistic physics like Assetto Corsa for example? A wide variety of cars, whether street, historic, concepts, formula, GTs or prototypes, with a really challenging career that keeps you in the game in a way that you really just have fun!

I'm already tired of choosing a GT3, going to a free-practice, training like crazy to see that I'm 4 seconds slower than the e-sports professionals, and that even if I join a racing server, The only experience I have is going into a 5-minute qualifying session, then a 20-minute race, with 15 more retarded drivers, who are fighting to win a race that is worth or rewards absolutely nothing in the game.

Maybe i'm asking too much to have maybe even a Gran Turismo 7 on the PC, so I can have fun by myself.
 
Seriously, why nobody thinks about making a "Gran Turismo 4" on the PC but with more realistic physics like Assetto Corsa for example? A wide variety of cars, whether street, historic, concepts, formula, GTs or prototypes, with a really challenging career that keeps you in the game in a way that you really just have fun!
Maybe i'm asking too much
Yes you are actually asking too much, unfortunatelly. It is not a coincidence that the physics of the games that have a huge variety of cars is not on the same level as the games that have a narrower focus.
Its incredibly time and therefore money consuming to have a big variety of cars and have them all on the same quality of physics and ffb. Thats why the Gran Turismos and Forza Motorsports of the world have the biggest variety but the 'worst' physics compared to the known sims. And if they with their huge budgets can't pull it off, how should smaller sim studios pull it off? Its unfortunatelly not possible.
The only way this might be achievable for a simracing studio is over time and via paid content. Release a solid base package (like AC1 had) and then build over many years the library of different cars and tracks and have people pay for all of it.
Tbh, i would not be opposed to the following scenario: Assetto Corsa 2 launches with something like 5-6 insanely detailed tracks and smth like 20-30 cars (some modern day sports or supercars, some gt3 or gt cars, some historic race cars, some openwheelers) for a price of 35,99. And then from there they are releasing every month cars and every 2-3 months tracks that you pay for per car and per track.
 
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i don t care...as usual, loud words first and in fact nothing special
 
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Premium
Nobody:
Absolutely no one:
Rennsport devs: Let's make a modern GT sim that's probably something which is missing in the simracing world!
 
Premium
I'm having a déjà vu right now... Ah no! it was Thrustmaster's DD announcement...

Well, I'll stick with the old, varied, growing and reliable Assetto Corsa. And I hope for many years.
 
Premium
I wonder if they have tried Chat GTP-4 to do some coding for them... At least it can produce content in approximately 3-5 seconds....
 
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Seriously, why nobody thinks about making a "Gran Turismo 4" on the PC but with more realistic physics like Assetto Corsa for example? A wide variety of cars, whether street, historic, concepts, formula, GTs or prototypes, with a really challenging career that keeps you in the game in a way that you really just have fun!
AC2 will most likely have all of these :)
 

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